“Little did we know it, but 11 months after we brought SmartThings to our beach-front rental home, Hurricane Sandy tore through our barrier island and devastated much of the region.

While my family and I were safe back at our full-time home, I had never experienced an emergency flooding situation before, and was understandably nervous about how our humble investment would hold up.

The scene as David arrived home.

Unable to contact anyone close by to know what was going on, I decided to make the trip myself to see how the house was faring. I arrived to find five inches of water in the first floor. Had I installed a SmartSense Moisture sensor, I might have been able to save the washing machine, hot water heater, and dryer. We are now getting ready to install 2 SmartSense Moistures to notify us of potential issues before they become costly damages.

The aftermath of the storm.

We’re still looking at additional ways that SmartThings can help us be more environmentally friendly–such as limiting the amount of energy our hot tub and pool consumes, installing more automatic lighting situations, and getting the ability to control more appliances. All in all, after one season of using SmartThings, our home utility bill was $78 less than it was the season before.